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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26113189">Not Quite According to Plan</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyah/pseuds/ChicoryandBananas'>ChicoryandBananas (Nyah)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Lucifer (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Episode 1x04, Episode Related, F/M, Wings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 07:09:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,634</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26113189</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyah/pseuds/ChicoryandBananas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>That gorgeous, heart-breaking scene where she sees the remnants of his wings.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>131</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Not Quite According to Plan</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>A deep dive of That Scene in 1x04 heavily inspired by some gorgous meta on said scene by tarysande. I don't know you but many thanks for accidentally convincing me to really give this show a try.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>The elevator slides open and she realizes she’s already used to letting herself in. Lucifer has the worst security for someone with so much to lose. All part of the devil-may-care act,she supposes. “Make yourself a drink, Detective,” he calls, voice echoing brightly from somewhere in the uneven light, like it means the same thing as “Hello.” </span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>Sensing a trap, she launches into a speech about boundaries that feels like it’s been a long time coming even though she’s only known the guy a few weeks. “No, no,” she says, walking a slow circle, covering every angle of the enormous room and all the shadows he might be standing in. She’s beyond annoyed she has to do this so theatrically, but honestly, the world is depressingly full of men that need to be told exactly what “no” means and this is obviously another one. So, here we go again, not her first rodeo, not her first rodeo clown.</span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is a professional relationship. I’m a police officer,” she concludes. “And you….” She turns to find skin, endless and perfect, and deeply challenging to her resolve. Her face contorts more times than she can count long before her brain is in any shape to try.”...Are naked!” She hears herself squawk the words at the same moment she recognizes her eyes are threatening to pop out of her head. It’s the second least dignified thing she could have said at the end of a monologue about boundaries but still more professional than, “Are you fucking kidding me?” </span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>She has the adrenaline-fueled feeling that too much is happening at once. She smiles. Jesus fucking Christ, this man. She cuts off a laugh. What would the naked devil in the penthouse apartment say if she brought Jesus into this? What the actual hell was happening to her life? And what was her face doing now? </span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>Holy, holy, holy. Shit.</span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>She manages to drag her eyes up to his face and his tiny, triumphant smirk lets her turn her back on him to compose herself while he spouts some nonsense about turn about and fair play and blah,blah, blah because this is all deeply, </span>
  <em>
    <span>deeply, </span>
  </em>
  <span>unfair. She’s a woman with a pretty face, an inconvenient filmography, and a decade’s tedious practice of having to say “no” louder, and more firmly, and more often that anyone should have to to men who just can’t take the hint. </span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>But she didn’t grow up under the weird burdens of God and Church and fucked up guilt about sex. She isn’t used to saying “no” when she’d really enjoy saying “yes.” Chloe likes men. She really likes sex. And this is a very beautiful, very naked man who would probably be so much easier to work with if she just gave in and let him get it out of his system. Which, frankly, is just fucked up enough to be the only thing stopping her at this point. </span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>So, a small part of her is already angry. Which is good. Anger is simple. Also, beyond justified for the boundary crashing and outright objectification of this whole series of meetings between them. A larger part of her would really like to be angry but is all too aware how lucky it is she’d turned around fully before she saw him standing there, gorgeous and bare in the lamplight because if he’d caught her mid-turn, she probably would have broken her neck. </span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is beyond inappropriate.” </span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good job, Decker,” she chides herself. “Cling to that life raft.” </span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“And brave!” Lucifer says brightly, referencing rule number whatever set down by that manchild pickup artist he himself eclipsed in charm without even trying. The absurd, cheerful, bastard. But this, at least, is familiar ground.She’s been treated like a prize instead of a person more than once and hearing him tick game strategy off a list grounds her enough to act. </span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a towel draped on the sofa, mirroring the one she’d fumbled then recovered in a flustered panic when he’d </span>
  <em>
    <span>broken into her home</span>
  </em>
  <span>. “Put some fucking clothes on,” she says sneaking a peak because she’s only human. The glance is nominally for aim and too short to take in his stuttering expression. Had she looked longer, looked up, she might have seen the devil, for the first time in his life, look a little embarrassed.</span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright. But, seriously, darling, are you well?” He’s perplexed, like her boundaries are a delightful but concerning irony. </span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>She deeply wishes she were angrier with him right now. The smug,arrogant, asshat.</span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“The berries are ripe and ready to be harvested.” </span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>Well now she’s grossed out. She can work with that.</span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>And still….</span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“I mean, look at me.”</span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>She does. </span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“I mean, look at me.”</span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>She does. </span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>He nods in the final vestiges of amusement, ready for her to drop the facade. What he’s feeling might be humiliation, if that weren’t absurd. She’s not indifferent to him, he’d observed every detail of her expression as she took him in and it was there, oh yes, he’d certainly watched human souls torture themselves with desire long enough to see it riding the turbulent sea changes of dry lips and wide eyes. But she is so very stubborn.</span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span> No matter, he’ll get them both over this hurdle of doubt or shame or whatever it is that has her pretending she doesn’t want him. He’ll show her there’s no virtue in self-denial, just like he shows them all. </span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>Spinning slowly for her appreciation, he puts himself on display like a peacock in full feather or a spitted piece of meat. But with his back turned to her, his smile slips and falters. He’s never had to try this hard. Not since coming here. Not since walking away from eons of wailing cries and gnashing teeth, bleeding lips and eyes wide with fear. </span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s chosen this body to be the pinnacle of earthly delight, to inspire lust free of remorse, to break the warped link binding desire to sin. He is the one party everyone is invited to and that would actually be worth going to Hell for and here she is, rejecting the invitation.  </span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>At first he was enjoying the challenge but now he’s a little offended. </span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“Now,” he finishes the turn and finds her staring at him transfixed and according to plan. “You can’t argue with that, can you?” </span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>But he’s gotten something wrong. She steps toward him, eyes softening from an intensity he doesn’t like to a concern he doesn’t understand. “What--?” Her raised hand gestures, trying to convey words she can’t get out. She’s staring at his chest and something is very wrong. A moment ago she could barely look a him and now she’s fighting to keep horror off her face while her eyes try to punch through to his spine.</span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“What...happened…? She gestures to her own back. “My</span>
  <em>
    <span> god.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Her hands spring apart and pat the air gently, like she’s looking at a wound too delicate to approach lest it start bleeding afresh.</span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span> And now he’s smiling thinly through his own horror. His wings. Their scars. The marks that had been seen by hundreds of people, thousands, with never more than a comment about his commitment to his “edgy devil thing.” </span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh. Well, yes, I suppose it is his fault.” He manages the hint of a chuckle. He knows that’s not at all what she means but irony is supposed to be the highest form of humor, isn’t it? </span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who’s fault?”</span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“My father,” he says, leveling with her for the umpteeth time, knowing she won’t believe him. Human are reassuringly predictable once you get to know them.</span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your dad did that to you?” Except this one,apparently, except this time.</span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” he says quickly because that look on her face might be pity and his words are starting to taste like shame. “That’s where I cut my wings off.”</span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” </span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>More horror. So he presses on, trying to talk fast enough that he can find a way to reverse this, to take back this thing she can never not know about him again. “Well I didn’t, Maze did. I told her too.”</span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” she shakes her head, refusing to look away from what must be a nightmare of flesh but to him has always felt like relief. She looks and she sees and he hates it. </span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“I did this. It wasn’t done to me,” he wants to reassure her but she’s reaching out to touch him in a horrible parody of the thing he thought he wanted just moments ago.</span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“No...seriously….what is….” Her palm cups his shoulder so gently and he lets himself be turned, stunned at how badly he wants her to touch him, even now and like this. But when warm fingers brush numb, tingling flesh he comes back to himself and whips around just slowly enough not to hurt her. </span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s seen so much he need hardly speak the words but he can’t seem to stop them. “Don’t,” he says. And, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Please</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her arm goes slack is his grip. “Okay,” she says like a promise. She’s not afraid to look at him now but he can barely stand to face her. </span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“I should get dressed or we’ll miss the party,” he calls back to her as he flees. It’s absurd, he would have stayed in bed with her for hours.</span>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <span>He dresses meticulously in the mirror, taking his time while he tries to shape his face into something that looks less haunted. He suspects she agrees to wear the red dress just to give his an excuse to hide back behind an empty smile. She is gentle and kind and good and he can barely forgive her for it. Lucky for him, he’s never put much stock in forgiveness.</span>
</p><p><br/>
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